WOODEN WORKBOATS ON THE HOKIANGA
Todays photo is a flash back to rural life in the early 1920’s when launches collected cream from wayside settlements around the harbour and transported the cargo to in this case a dairy factory ar Rawene.
In addition to the cream loads the boats provided transport for both farm and domestic supplies. The craft were the equivalent of todays Toyota HiLux ute.
Have to love the hatch / all weather shelter on the launch closest to the wharf. I think they were referred to as ‘blue collar flybridges’.
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You are quite correct in noting the importance of water transport in the Hokianga for the first half of the twentieth century. Because the roads were so challenging and the Hokianga offered so many tributaries, water transport was the most effective way to move people, groceries and cream cans. The dairy factory was at Motukaraka, across the harbour from Rawene.
But, when talking to old-timers about the launches, I first learned of tumbledown sterns. One said they prevented the transom from being caught under the edge of a jetty on a rising tide. I wonder if the launch on the right in your photo has a tumbledown stern
Richard Ward
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